


Persistence

by ornithomancy



Category: XCOM (Video Games) & Related Fandoms
Genre: Dreams and Nightmares, F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-05-05
Updated: 2018-05-05
Packaged: 2019-05-02 12:46:02
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,692
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14545062
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ornithomancy/pseuds/ornithomancy
Summary: The Commander is plagued with nightmares and not all of them are imaginary.





	Persistence

**Author's Note:**

> Also readable on tumblr at one-that-had-to.tumblr.com

Tatiana pulls her eye away from her scope to check her immediate area. All of her squad has safely moved on ahead, as far as she can tell. There are no bloodstains in the pavement, no dead soldiers lying on the ground, and no pockmarks from missed shots, so she knows everything went smoothly. **  
**

She does not question where the certainty comes from.

She pats down her combat uniform until she can find where she put her radio. “Is everything clear?”

“Affirmative. You’re good to move up to the next building,” her soldier replies. Absently, she thinks it sounds like Betsy.

She doesn’t need telling twice, so she slings her sniper rifle over her back and finds the nearest spot to jump down to the ground safely from. The sharp angles and looming stature of ADVENT architecture had always skeeved her out, but at the very least they thought to install plenty of downspouts to climb. As much as she enjoyed climbing, she did wish her army uniform had a grappling hook.

The moment she is on the ground she breaks out into a sprint to catch up to the rest of her team, wanting to rendezvous with them and find a new perch to strategize from as soon as possible. She runs down an alleyway that she’d guided her men through, only to freeze.

In the middle of the alleyway hovers an ethereal. It stares down at her, and she gets the feeling that it’s trying to tell her  _something_ , though she doesn’t want to know what.

She tries to move only to find that she  _can’t_. It’s very presence seems to overwhelm anything else, making it impossible to move, impossible to  _think_  around it. Either minutes or hours pass as she’s forced to stare at the ethereal in silence.

Tatiana wakes with her heart pounding. For a moment, she fears she might die from the arrhythmia. She takes a few moments to breathe and calm herself, but after taking sock of her surroundings she concludes that she is safe aboard the Avenger.

She splashes some water on her face and prepares for the day at 3 in the morning.

* * *

She recognizes the dream before she’s pulled her eye away from her scope this time. It’s the fifth time she’s had the same dream  — at least, so she thinks — but so far nothing of note has changed.

“Is everything clear?” she asks into the radio.

 _Affirmative. You’re good to move up to the next building_ , the reply comes. At this point, she can no longer tell if it’s speaking a human tongue or an alien one.

She fears she’s never been  _able_  to.

Nevertheless, she drops down the downspout and turns into the alleyway.

The ethereal floats there as always, freezing her in place and staring down at her. If she strains, she can almost  _feel_  what it wants to tell her, but the silence is too oppressive, too deafening to hear over.

She resigns herself once more to wait, her fingers twitching towards a fist.

It gives her an idea.

Tatiana still wakes with a jolt and a pounding heart, but this time she is not alone. Bradford’s arm rests warmly across her chest and she can feel his breath against her shoulder. His presence is comforting, bringing solace to her war torn mind.

She takes a few moments to ground herself, to remind herself that  _this_ is what is real, not any of the multitude of horrors she saw, real or imagined. Once she feels calm enough again, she rolls onto her side and wraps her arms around Bradford.

The movement wakes him despite her best efforts. He gives her a squeeze and presses a tired kiss to her cheek. “You alright?” he asks, voice rough from sleep. He glances at the clock. “Which nightmare was it this time?”

She is quiet for too long a moment. “I don’t remember,” she lies into his shoulder.

He holds her a bit closer for the remainder of the night.

* * *

“Is everything clear?”

_Affirmative. You’re good to move up to the next building._

She’s almost eager as she drops down the downspout this time. She cannot count how many times she’s had this exact same dream, but for the first time she thinks she’s finally gotten the edge on the Elders.

She turns the corner and lets herself be stopped by the ethereal. She can feel its presence with every ounce of her very being, and while she cannot hear its voice, she knows what it’s trying to say.

_Return to us._

Tatiana glares at the ethereal with all the hate and defiance that has built up over the past twenty years. Without warning, she grabs a bit of loose pipe conveniently on the ground of the alley. She smashes it into what she supposes is its chest, wishing she’d paid a bit more attention when her father tried to get her into baseball.

The ethereal stumbles back — as much as a floating being can stumble. One of its four arms emerges from its cloak to grasp at its chest in pain.

She stares at it, breathing heavily. She knows she should step forward and hit it again, but even just the one swing had taken so much out of her. She knows she is stronger than that, but her subconscious apparently does not agree.

After a moment, the Ethereal raises one of its other arms and a flash of purple light blinds her.

Tatiana falls off the bed with a blood curling scream. With only the ambient glow of electronics in the room to guide her, she manages to stumble into the bathroom and immediately vomits. Pain courses through her body, her mind feels numb, and she’s sure her heart is about to beat out of her chest.

She vomits twice more before she manages to regain some semblance of control over her body. At some point a presence joins her, but it still takes a moment to realize that it’s Bradford rubbing her back and not a threat.

“That wasn’t one of your usual nightmares.”

The concern in his voice almost makes her want to vomit again, but even if there was something in her stomach, she doesn’t have the strength to vomit again.

“It  _was,_  I just haven’t told you about it,” she admits quietly at long last. She sits back and lets him manipulate them so they could lean against each other. His silence feels almost as deafening as the ethereal’s, so slowly she begins to explain. “I’ve had this recurring dream. I’m perched on a roof in one of ADVENT’s cities, guiding my squad to safety. I radio to see if it’s safe for me to move ahead, and I get the go ahead, so I drop down, turn into an alleyway, and there’s an ethereal waiting for me.”

He noticeably tenses at the mention. “You’ve been dreaming of one of the Elders for how long now?”

“Since I woke up,” she admits quietly.

“You should have mentioned that before now.”

She drops her head back to rest against his shoulder. “I know. It was never — I didn’t think —” She sighs and rubs a hand over her face to try and recenter herself. “At first, when I ran into the ethereal, I couldn’t move, couldn’t speak, I couldn’t do  _anything._  But neither could it. I thought it was just a harmless dream. And then I started to be able to move during it, so I focused on that until I could do  _something_  to the bastard.”

“And it reacted in kind,” he surmises. He gives her a gentle squeeze. “That was an incredibly dumb thing to do. I thought you were supposed to be the strategic genius here?”

Despite everything, she manages a weak laugh. “Fuck off.”

“In all seriousness, did you forget that the Elders are extremely powerful psionic beings? We’re lucky all it’s done until now is stare at you.”

“Maybe after twenty years, I’ve lost the ability to tell if an Elder is actually in my head harassing me or not,” she replies. She tries to make it a lighthearted joke.

Bradford just holds her a bit closer.

“Look, I doubt it’s going to attempt that again anytime soon. It seemed pretty unhappy that I actually managed to injure it,” she assures quietly after another too long silence. She wriggles around just enough to loop one arm around his chest.

“Maybe you should have Lily make another mindshield.”

She sighs and leans against him. “I’ll be fine.”

* * *

Dread sinks into Tatiana’s chest as she pulls her eye from her scope. She is once again perched on the roof in one of ADVENT’s cities, scanning the area for any potential danger.

She tries to stop herself from reaching for her radio, but she cannot control her own body.

“Is everything clear?” she asks, wishing she could vomit.

_Affirmative. You’re good to move up to the next building._

She still can’t tell if it’s a human or alien speaking, not that it’s ever mattered in the first place. She drops down regardless and heads into the alleyway, tears that are unable to fall prickling at her eyes.

A flash of light blinds her as she enters the cursed alleyway. When her vision clears, she is not in a nondescript ADVENT city. In fact, she is not  _anywhere._  There is nothing but empty void around her, save for the ethereal staring down at her.

She tries to move, but it takes effort to even  _breathe._  Twitching her fingers is out of the question.

 _“Child,"_   the Ethereal says, loud and clear, ringing throughout her entire body. If it continues to say anything else, she cannot hear it.

When she wakes, she doesn’t hesitate to roll over and curl into Bradford. She presses her face into his shoulder and tries to ground herself in reality. A damp spot quickly forms on his shirt and she’s absently aware that her tears have become real.

“Tanya?” he mumbles sleepily.

She tightens her grip on him and tries and fails to keep her voice from shaking. “I think I need a mindshield.”


End file.
